If you want to understand Second Temple Judaism, then you need to read its texts. OT scholar Michael Heiser notes:

One of the best ways to think like a biblical writer is to read the intellectual output of the cultures contemporary to the biblical writer. This helps us process the biblical material in light of the worldview of the people who produced the Bible. It enables us to understand the biblical content the way someone living at the time would have understood it. It helps us discern intellectual overlaps and divergences for proper interpretation.

This recent essay by Prof. Lawrence Schiffman is recommended as a general nudge for readers to read this sort of material. It’s a nice overview of things like the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, etc

Heiser's right - Schiffman's essay is a good introduction into the subject of Second Temple Judaism.

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” - Galileo Galilei